4 Utah women's volleyball teams are in the NCAA Tournament

SALT LAKE CITY — Four of the 64 teams that heard their names called into the 2025 NCAA women's volleyball tournament bracket Sunday were from the state of Utah.

Book your travel plans accordingly.

The tournament opens Dec. 4-6, followed by regionals Dec. 11-14 and the national championship Dec. 21 in Kansas City. All matches will be broadcast on the ESPN family of networks.

Big Ten champion Nebraska earned the No. 1 overall seed.

BYU makes field for 14th year in a row

BYU earned a No. 5 seed in the Los Angeles regional, and will open the tournament against Big West champion Cal Poly (25-7).

Fourth-seeded USC will host Ivy League champion Princeton in the other regional match Thursday. The Trojans and Tigers will follow the opening match between the Cougars and Mustangs at 6 p.m. MST.

The Cougars are one of 10 Big 12 teams in the bracket, and back in the Big Dance for the 14th consecutive season and 38th year overall, including all 11 seasons under current head coach Heather Olmstead.

Led by star freshman outside hitter Suli Davis — who broke a 40-year-old program record for most kills in a single season by a freshman — and setter Alex Bower who led the Big 12 with 10.68 assists per set, No. 24-ranked BYU finished the regular season with four straight wins en route to a 22-8 overall record, including a 10-8 mark in Big 12 play.

The Cougars led the Big 12 with 192 aces, finished second with 1.68 aces per set, 13.01 assists per set, a .268 hitting percentage, 13.97 kills per set, 1,483 total assists and 1,593 total kills.

Late surge leads Utes back to tournament

The 12th-place team in the Big 12 is in the bracket for a second straight year in the league, and the University of Utah will travel to the Omaha regional hosted by No. 3 Creighton.

The Utes (15-14) will open the tournament Thursday against sixth-seeded Northern Iowa (3:30 p.m. MST, ESPN+), the Missouri Valley Conference tournament champions who are back in the NCAA Tournament for the 21st time in program history and fourth consecutive season.

Led by Missouri Valley MVP Cassidy Hartman, the Panthers have won 21 consecutive matches dating back to September that includes a sweep of the regular-season and conference tournament titles.

At 15-14 overall, the Utes were the last team in the field, according to the bracket field released by ESPN.

Utah was just 7-11 in Big 12 play, but nonconference wins over then-No. 24 Dayton and Washington State as well as wins in four of their final five matches that include then-No. 23 BYU and No. 13 Kansas at home helped the Utes clinch a berth for a second consecutive year and 20th time in program history.

Utah State heads to desert for opening regional

The Mountain West champion Aggies will open the NCAA Tournament Thursday against seventh-seeded Tennessee (20-7) at Desert Financial Arena in Tempe, Arizona.

Utah State (23-7) hasn't lost a match since a 3-0 setback to then-No. 16 BYU in Logan back on Sept. 18 that dropped the Aggies to 2-7 on the year with losses to San Diego, Marquette, Texas A&M, Utah, Stanford and UC Davis.

Since then, the Aggies have been rolling, winning 21 consecutive matches and a fifth conference title in the last five seasons that includes the Mountain West regular-season and conference championships in 2025 and regular-season titles in 2021 and 2023.

Led by former BYU men's volleyball standout Rob Neilson, the Aggies improved to 5-3 all-time in Mountain West Tournament play Saturday with a 3-0 sweep of Colorado State, coming a day after falling behind 0-2 and reverse-sweeping Boise State in the tournament semifinals.

Utah Valley to open tournament in Bay Area

Utah Valley (16-10) will open the tournament Friday at second-seeded Stanford (27-4), where the Cardinal will also host Arizona and South Dakota State in regional play in Stanford, California.

Utah Valley clinched the automatic berth out of the Western Athletic Conference — the final one awarded before the league dissolves and rebrands as the United Athletic Conference next summer — with a win in the final conference tournament in Abilene, Texas.

Utah Valley was led by WAC Player of the Year Avery Page and Setter of the Year Evalyn Chism, as well as all-WAC first-team selections Sami Blackett and Bella Wooden, and second-team honorees Alyvia Jaffa and Lani Matavao en route to a 10-2 league record.

Page wrapped up her four-year All-WAC career with her second major postseason honor and first since winning WAC freshman of the year in 2022. The senior outside hitter from Lehi averaged 3.40 kills per set for 299 kills in leading the Wolverines to their first WAC regular-season championship.

Chism, a junior from Bountiful, lived up to her billing as WAC preseason setter of the year in averaging 6.66 assists per set in a 5-2 formation, and becoming just the sixth player in program history to surpass 2,000 career assists.

Related topics